Beckman Foundation Scholar Awards

Boston University and UROP are proud to announce that we received a three-year Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation Scholars Program Award in 2011, the fifth time that Boston University has received a Beckman Award. The current Beckman award has allowed six Boston University students to receive generous two-year Scholar awards to conduct independent research. Two Beckman Scholars were selected in April 2012 and we will be selecting two new scholars in April 2013.

Each student named as a Beckman Scholar performs research part-time during two academic years and full-time over two summers. The Beckman Scholar Award consists of a stipend ($4000 per academic year, $6000 per summer), a travel and supplies allowance ($1600 per academic year, $850 per summer). The award also includes a trip to the Beckman Scholars Annual Research Symposium, held each summer in Irvine, CA, where each student will present his or her research to a group of Beckman scholars, mentors, scientists, and administrators. Competition for this award is open to Boston University sophomores who are US Citizens or Permanent Residents and who are majoring in Biology, BMB, Chemistry or Biomedical Engineering. For more information on the award and the application process, please click here.

Beckman Scholars

The 2012 Beckman Scholars are pictured below.

Alex Valentine, a Biomedical Engineering major, is working with Dr. Joyce Wong in the Biomedical Engineering Department on the development of a drug delivery technique for the treatment of allergic asthma and atopy. The project seeks to develop an ultrasound-facilitated transdermal antibody delivery method that can be validated in mouse models. This project has potential medical implications in that the specific antibody being used has shown therapeutic benefits for over half of asthma patients who have a particular allergen imbalance.

Zach Ariki, a Chemistry major, is doing research in the laboratory of Dr. John Porco (Chemistry). The general area of his research is the organic synthesis of natural product-based compounds that may have medical benefits. Specifically, Zach is investigating the synthesis of a class of compounds called microsphaerins, which have been demonstrated to have antimicrobial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is now a common hospital pathogen for which there are limited therapeutic options. Thus, the development of methods to synthesize microsphaerins could have important benefits for the treatment of patients with MRSA.

Information on past Beckman Scholars is available here.